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danmahara/laravel-openapi

Attribute-based OpenAPI 3.1 documentation for Laravel, with automatic schema inference from FormRequests and API Resources.

Built as an alternative to darkaonline/l5-swagger. The main difference: request/response schemas are inferred from code that already exists (FormRequest::rules(), JsonResource::toArray()) instead of being written out by hand in annotations.

Install

Usage

Routes registered with Laravel's Route facade (or router) are discovered at generation time. No attributes are required:

This generates a POST operation at /api/users, infers the request schema from StoreUserRequest, and a default 200 response schema from UserResource. GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE and OPTIONS are supported; HEAD is omitted. Controller methods, invokable controllers, and closures are supported. Route groups and resource routes work through Laravel's registered route table. URI parameters are included automatically; optional {id?} becomes {id} with required: true, as OpenAPI requires for path parameters. Route/group and controller middleware names are exposed as x-laravel-middleware; recognized authentication middleware also adds OpenAPI security. Middleware aliases/groups remain unexpanded. If the container cannot resolve a controller dependency, only route/group middleware is available.

A single FormRequest type hint and a single JsonResource return type (including nullable types) enable inference. Ambiguous types require explicit attributes. Actions are never executed. Resource inference uses the existing heuristic and does not infer collection item types, response wrapping, or HTTP status codes. Use explicit attributes for these details, including a 201 creation response.

Attributes customize the discovered operation. Explicit request bodies and responses take precedence over type hints; an explicit parameter replaces the inferred parameter with the same name and location. ApiExclude and configured include/exclude patterns still apply.

For example, add attributes to controller methods:

Then either:

• Visit /api/documentation for a live Swagger UI, backed by /api/documentation.json
• Run php artisan openapi:generate (or --format=yaml) to write a static spec file

Both routes and the output path are configurable in config/openapi.php, including which route URI patterns to include/exclude (include/exclude, matched with Laravel's Str::is() wildcard patterns).

Automatic authentication detection

Authentication middleware on discovered routes, route groups, and controllers adds operation security and a reusable component automatically:

The built-in mappings are auth:sanctum → sanctum, auth:api → api, and auth → auth, all using HTTP bearer authentication. These are documentation defaults: Laravel guards can use other mechanisms, and Sanctum can also use session cookies. The package does not inspect guard drivers or execute auth. Public routes receive no security requirement. Repeated schemes and identical requirements are deduplicated. Separate recognized middleware are required together (OpenAPI AND semantics).

Class or method #[ApiSecurity(name: 'customScheme')] attributes replace automatic detection for that operation; define those schemes in security_schemes. Existing class and method attributes remain combined. Configured security_schemes definitions take precedence over inferred definitions.

Extend or override exact middleware mappings in config/openapi.php, without changing route discovery. For example, to document bare auth as session auth:

Matching uses the middleware names returned by route discovery. Custom aliases, nested middleware groups, class names, and multi-guard strings such as auth:sanctum,api need an explicit mapping or security attributes. Excluded middleware exclusions use Laravel’s alias and class resolution, while named middleware groups remain unexpanded. Controller middleware is unavailable if controller dependencies cannot be resolved.

Attributes

Path parameters ({id} in the route URI) are picked up automatically and don't need an ApiParameter attribute unless you want to add a description or a non-string type.

How schema inference works — and its limits

FormRequest → schema (FormRequestSchemaBuilder): reflects the class and calls rules() directly (via newInstanceWithoutConstructor, without booting the request). This works for rules that don't depend on the container, the current route, or auth state. Rules that do depend on those things throw during reflection and are caught — those fields are silently omitted rather than guessed. Nested/wildcard keys (items.*.name) are skipped for the same reason: flattening them correctly needs more context than a rule string alone gives.

Supported rule → schema mappings: required, nullable, integer, numeric, boolean, array, date/date_format, email, uuid, in:, min:, max:.

JsonResource → schema (ResourceSchemaBuilder): this one is a heuristic, not an evaluator. It never runs toArray() — it statically scans the method's source for 'key' => expression pairs and guesses a type from the key name and the shape of the expression (is_/has_ prefixes → boolean, id/*_id → integer, *_at/date/created/updated → date-time string, ::collection → array). Anything it can't classify defaults to string. Review generated response schemas — this is the part most likely to need manual correction, especially for computed fields or unusual naming.

Both builders accept an explicit schema array on the attribute instead (#[ApiResponse(status: 200, schema: [...])]), which skips inference entirely for cases the heuristics get wrong.

Testing

The suite includes discovery unit tests and Laravel integration tests for automatic inference, middleware, closures, route filters, and manual metadata precedence. The CI matrix runs the suite on Laravel 10, 11, 12, and 13 with the corresponding Orchestra Testbench versions.

Known limitations / roadmap

• No support yet for oneOf/allOf/polymorphic resources.
• No caching layer — regeneration walks the full route table each call. Fine for artisan openapi:generate in CI; for the live /api/documentation.json route on a large app, consider caching the array behind Cache::remember.
• Swagger UI is loaded from a CDN (unpkg.com) in the bundled view. For offline/air-gapped environments, publish the view (--tag=openapi-views) and swap in a locally vendored copy of swagger-ui-dist.